The Dance of Anger Quotes

“Our society doesn’t promote self-acceptance and it never will. First of all, self-acceptance doesn’t sell products. Capitalism would fall if we liked ourselves the way we are now. Also, people who feel shamed and inadequate themselves tend to pass it on. I’m sure you’ve noticed that many individuals and groups try to enhance their self-esteem by diminishing others.”
― Harriet Lerner, The Dance of Anger: A Woman's Guide to Changing the Patterns of Intimate Relationships

“But one of the hallmarks of emotional maturity is to recognize the validity of multiple realities and to understand that people think, feel, and react differently. Often we behave as if “closeness” means “sameness.”
― Harriet Lerner, The Dance of Anger: A Woman's Guide to Changing the Patterns of Intimate Relationships

“We cannot make another person change his or her steps to an old dance, but if we change our own steps, the dance no longer can continue in the same predictable pattern. 4.”
― Harriet Lerner, The Dance of Anger: A Woman's Guide to Changing the Patterns of Intimate Relationships

“it is no wonder that it is hard for us to know, let alone admit, that we are angry. Why are angry women so threatening to others? If we are guilty, depressed, or self-doubting, we stay in place. We do not take action except against our own selves and we are unlikely to be agents of personal and social change. In contrast, angry women may change and challenge the lives of us all, as witnessed by the past decade of feminism. And change is an anxiety-arousing and difficult business for everyone, including those of us who are actively pushing for it. Thus, we too learn to fear our own anger, not only because it brings about the disapproval of others, but also because it signals the necessity for change. We may begin to ask ourselves questions that serve to block or invalidate our own experience of anger: “Is my anger legitimate?” “Do I have a right to be angry?” “What’s the use of my getting angry?” “What good will it do?” These questions can be excellent ways of silencing ourselves and shutting off our anger.”
― Harriet Lerner, The Dance of Anger: A Woman's Guide to Changing the Patterns of Intimate Relationships

“feeling angry signals a problem, venting anger does not solve it. Venting anger may serve to maintain, and even rigidify, the old rules and patterns in a relationship, thus ensuring that change does not occur. When emotional intensity is high, many of us engage in nonproductive efforts to change the other person, and in so doing, fail to exercise our power to clarify and change our own selves. The old anger-in/anger-out theory, which states that letting it all hang out offers protection from the psychological hazards of keeping it all pent up, is simply not true. Feelings of depression, low self-esteem, self-betrayal, and even self-hatred are inevitable when we fight but continue to submit to unfair circumstances, when we complain but live in a way that betrays our hopes, values and potentials, or when we find ourselves fulfilling society’s stereotype of the bitchy, nagging, bitter, or destructive woman. Those of us who are locked into ineffective expressions of anger suffer as deeply as those of us who dare not get angry at all.”
― Harriet Lerner, The Dance of Anger: A Woman's Guide to Changing the Patterns of Intimate Relationships

“Anger is inevitable when our lives consist of giving in and going along; when we assume responsibility for other people’s feelings and reactions; when we relinquish our primary responsibility to proceed with our own growth and ensure the quality of our own lives; when we behave as if having a relationship is more important than having a self.”
― Harriet Lerner, The Dance of Anger: A Woman's Guide to Changing the Patterns of Intimate Relationships

“Our society cultivates guilt feelings in women such that many of us still feel guilty if we are anything less than an emotional service station to others.”
― Harriet Lerner, The Dance of Anger: A Woman's Guide to Changing the Patterns of Intimate Relationships

“Anger is a tool for change when it challenges us to become more of an expert on the self and less of an expert on others.”
― Harriet Lerner, The Dance of Anger: A Woman's Guide to Changing the Patterns of Intimate Relationships

“Don’t use “below-the-belt” tactics. These include: blam- ing, interpreting, diagnosing, labeling, analyzing, preaching, moralizing, ordering, warning, interrogating, ridiculing, and lecturing. Don’t put the other person down.”
― Harriet Lerner, The Dance of Anger: A Woman's Guide to Changing the Patterns of Intimate Relationships

“When we do not put our primary emotional energy into solving our own problems, we take on other people’s problems as our own.”
― Harriet Lerner, The Dance of Anger: A Woman's Guide to Changing the Patterns of Intimate Relationships

“We may view it as our responsibility to control something that is not in fact within our control and yet fail to exercise the power and authority that we do have over our own behavior. Mothers cannot make children think, feel, or be a certain way, but we can be firm, consistent, and clear about what behavior we will and will not tolerate, and what the consequences are for misbehavior. We can also change our part in patterns that keep family members stuck. At the same time we are doomed to failure with any self-help venture if we view the problem as existing within ourselves—or within the child or the child’s father, for that matter. There is never one villain in family life, although it may appear that way on the surface.”
― Harriet Lerner, The Dance of Anger: A Woman's Guide to Changing the Patterns of Intimate Relationships

“Nothing, but nothing, will block the awareness of anger so effectively as guilt and self-doubt. Our society cultivates guilt feelings in women such that many of us still feel guilty if we are anything less than an emotional service station to others.”
― Harriet Lerner, The Dance of Anger: A Woman's Guide to Changing the Patterns of Intimate Relationships

“Our anger can be a powerful vehicle for personal growth and change if it does nothing more than help us recognize that we are not yet clear about something and that it is our job to keep struggling with it.”
― Harriet Lerner, The Dance of Anger: A Woman's Guide to Changing the Patterns of Intimate Relationships

“Remember that women have a long legacy of assuming responsibility for other people’s feelings and for caring for others at the expense of the self. Some of us may care for others by picking up their dirty socks or doing their “feeling work”; some by being less strong, self-directed, and competent than we can be so as to avoid threatening those important to us. Changing our legacy is possible but not easy. Think small to begin with, but think.”
― Harriet Lerner, The Dance of Anger: A Woman's Guide to Changing the Patterns of Intimate Relationships

“Yet all of us are vulnerable to intense, nonproductive angry reactions in our current relationships if we do not deal openly and directly with emotional issues from our first family—in particular, losses and cutoffs.”
― Harriet Lerner, The Dance of Anger: A Woman's Guide to Changing the Patterns of Intimate Relationships

“Learning to use our anger effectively requires some letting go—letting go of blaming that other person whom we see as causing our problems and failing to provide for our happiness; letting go of the notion that it is our job to change other people or tell them how they should think, feel, behave.”
― Harriet Lerner, The Dance of Anger: A Woman's Guide to Changing the Patterns of Intimate Relationships

“We begin to use our anger as a vehicle for change when we are able to share our reactions without holding the other person responsible for causing our feelings, and without blaming ourselves for the reactions that other people have in response to our choices and actions. We are responsible for our own behavior.”
― Harriet Lerner, The Dance of Anger: A Woman's Guide to Changing the Patterns of Intimate Relationships

“We cannot make another person change his or her steps to an old dance, but if we change our own steps, the dance no longer can continue in the same predictable pattern.”
― Harriet Lerner, The Dance of Anger: A Woman's Guide to Changing the Patterns of Intimate Relationships

“Those of us who are locked into ineffective expressions of
anger suffer as deeply as those of us who dare not get angry at all.”
― Harriet Lerner, The Dance of Anger: A Woman's Guide to Changing the Patterns of Intimate Relationships

“If, however, our goal is to break a pattern in an important relationship and/or to develop a stronger sense of self that we can bring to all our relationships, it is essential that we learn to translate our anger into clear, nonblaming statements about our own self.”
― Harriet Lerner, The Dance of Anger: A Woman's Guide to Changing the Patterns of Intimate Relationships

“Distinguish between privacy and secrecy.”
― Harriet Lerner, The Dance of Anger: A Woman's Guide to Changing the Patterns of Intimate Relationships

“you have been emotionally cut off from a family member, it can be an act of courage simply to send a birthday card or holiday greeting. Keep in mind that people—like other growing things—do not hold up well in the long run when severed from their roots. If you are emotionally disconnected from family members, you will be more intense and reactive in other relationships. An emotional cutoff with an important family member generates an underground anxiety that can pop up as anger somewhere else. Be brave and stay in touch.”
― Harriet Lerner, The Dance of Anger: A Woman's Guide to Changing the Patterns of Intimate Relationships

“We cannot make another person change his or her steps to an old dance, but if we change our own steps, the dance no longer can continue”
― Harriet Lerner, The Dance of Anger: A Woman's Guide to Changing the Patterns of Intimate Relationships

“Venting anger may serve to maintain, and even rigidify, the old rules and patterns in a relationship, thus ensuring that change does not occur.”
― Harriet Lerner, The Dance of Anger: A Woman's Guide to Changing the Patterns of Intimate Relationships

“..All of us are vulnerable to intense, non-productive angry reactions in our current relationships if we do not deal openly and directly with emotional issues from our first family—in particular, losses and cutoffs. If we do not observe and understand how our triangles operate, our anger can keep us stuck in the past, rather than serving as an incentive and guide to form more productive relationship patterns for the future.”
― Harriet Lerner, The Dance of Anger: A Woman's Guide to Changing the Patterns of Intimate Relationships

“venting anger does not solve the problem that anger signals.”
― Harriet Lerner, The Dance of Anger: A Woman's Guide to Changing the Patterns of Intimate Relationships

“Separation anxiety may creep up on us whenever we shift to a more autonomous”
― Harriet Lerner, The Dance of Anger: A Woman's Guide to Changing the Patterns of Intimate Relationships

“Karen was afraid of transforming her anger into concise statements of her thoughts and feelings lest she evoke that disturbing sense of separateness and aloneness that we experience when we make our differences known and encourage others to do the same.”
― Harriet Lerner, The Dance of Anger: A Woman's Guide to Changing the Patterns of Intimate Relationships

“There is nothing inherently virtuous in using “I messages” in all circumstances. If our goal is simply to let someone know we’re angry”
― Harriet Lerner, The Dance of Anger: A Woman's Guide to Changing the Patterns of Intimate Relationships

“We cannot make another person be different”
― Harriet Lerner, The Dance of Anger: A Woman's Guide to Changing the Patterns of Intimate Relationships